© 2019 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
Our Lady of Lights
June 2019
Call list for the meeting of the Ordinary General Assembly of June 15, 2019 at Notre Dame de Lumières
On June 15, 2019 at 9 a.m., members of the French-speaking association of readers of the Urantia Book met at Notre Dame de Lumières for an ordinary general assembly, at the call of President Ivan Stol.
- Total number of members: Forty-five (45)
- Number of participants: Twenty-two (22)
- Number of members present: Twenty-two (22) including 6 proxies — as per attached appendix
The quorum is reached, according to article 13 of the statutes, the ordinary general meeting can deliberate.
¶ Agenda :
Presentation and votes of the ordinary general meeting for deliberations of the following resolutions:
I. Resolution for the year 2019: What is happening in Europe and in the world? Usefulness of international conferences?
II. Resolution for the year 2019: Are we going to move and make ourselves known? Should we wait passively or act for the dissemination of UB?
III. Resolution for the year 2019: Should we create a spiritual reception center and how to do it?
IV. Resolution on the year 2019: Election of the executive board.
V. Resolution for the year 2019: Accounting, balance sheet. (In the next LINK)
With no further deliberations on the agenda, the discussion is finally open.
¶ AFLUB Ordinary General Meeting June 2019
The 2019 Ordinary General Assembly of the French association of readers of the Urantia Book was held on Saturday, June 15 at 9:00 a.m. at Notre Dame de Lumières.
The statutes and internal regulations are on the table and available to participants.
The assembly appoints Mr. Ivan Stol as Chairman of the meeting and Mr. Max Masotti as Secretary.
While the President read the regulations to remind everyone of the operating rules of the ORDINARY GENERAL ASSEMBLY, the members of the assembly signed the attendance sheet when entering the session.
The attendance sheet is verified, approved and certified as accurate by the assembly office, which notes that there are 22 members present (and 6 proxies), out of a total of 45 members making up the association.
The attendance sheet is attached.
The quorum having been reached, according to article 13 of the statutes, the Assembly can validly deliberate.
Mr. Max Masotti, secretary, is appointed by the President to take notes on the minutes of the national meeting.
In accordance with the invitation which was sent to all members, the agenda was as follows:
¶ I. Resolution for the year 2019:
What is happening in Europe and in the world? Uses of international conferences?
There are European leaders but there is no organization.
Is there a leader who takes care of this? A young one if possible.
Antonio Schaeffer takes care of it a little but he is the international coordinator.
There is a young Dutch leader, Sebastian Nozzi, who comes from South America and who occupies the role of European coordinator.
To make ourselves known, it is being put in place. In Germany, they are not very coordinated unlike in Spain with Olga Lopez.
The English have asked to hold a Franco-English meeting in Brittany, to be continued.
There will be a European meeting in Tallinn, Estonia.
Why shouldn’t the French association hold a European meeting?
Ivan’s response: “I haven’t gotten involved in this yet and we don’t have enough volunteers to put everything in place because it requires a strong organization that we don’t currently have.”
¶ II. Are we going to move and make ourselves known? Should we wait passively or act for the dissemination of UB?
Regarding the publishing of the Urantia Book, our publisher is far from perfect.
The Urantia Book is never found in the publisher’s sections because he is afraid of causing sales of one of his books to drop.
If you order the Urantia Book directly from the Librairie de l’Inconnu, you can have it without any problem if you are looking exclusively for the Urantia Book.
On Amazon, the Urantia Book can be found in all languages.
So we have a big distributor problem because we can’t find a single one who wants to sell just one book.
For those on Android, the Foundation will produce a free application to have the Urantia Book.
The problem is not printing it in the USA but distributing it.
The idea of creating a publishing house for the whole of Europe is a possibility at the same time as the creation of a center.
Patrick Morelli: “With all the means we have, we can certainly find The Urantia Book, if we look for it a little, even just on the Internet.
We can ask ourselves the question why it doesn’t work?
Maybe people aren’t ready?
What’s happening internationally?
There are two people in Cameroon who are qualified as leaders. One person attends zoom groups and he created two study groups with his brother, one in the suburbs of Douala and another person called Jean Massoma, a doctor of law who came to France in August last year, to stay with Georges and Marlène, to experience a 6-day study group.
He organizes a study group of eight people, the group is called: “True Values”.
Jean Massoma: “We offered two volumes to the libraries of Douala and the Urantia Book was well received.”
Guy Stéphane Nyasse gave around ten books to potential readers.
Next year, there will be a French-speaking fair in Switzerland in Lausanne with Erik Melka.
In England, a second association was created with the same people. The members of the old association had problems with the former president. They created a new association whose president is called Barry Culligan.
Legislative Information: The UIA has the power, if circumstances require it, to close an association and recover any remaining money.
AFLUB actions:
Concerning The Urantia Book and its distribution, either we let people discover it where the Book can be found or we hold conferences to make it known.
At the last show, Ivan gave a lecture on brotherhood and spirituality.
There were thirty people in the room. People were speechless: surprise? Disbelief? But something happened about how they themselves could improve the world in view of the questions that followed.
The word GOD was mentioned and Ivan explained that it is a divine brotherhood that is presented in The Urantia Book; the average age was between forty and fifty years old.
We should hold conferences, workshops and speeches.
Sophie Malicot: “In Ales, there are large conference rooms.”
Donnadieu: “I gave a talk on family, from The Urantia Book at the Buffalo Grill and there were a dozen people, one of whom bought The Urantia Book.
There is therefore a phenomenon of conferences to make The Urantia Book known.
Donnadieu asks if it is possible to make a Urantia Book in A4 format.
Ivan is thinking of doing video conferences.
Sale of The Urantia Book and its versions worldwide.
- In France, La librairie de l’Inconnu sells between fifty and eighty books per year.
- In Quebec, 500 to 600 are sold per year.
- In English, around 1500 are sold per year.
- In Poland 400 to 500 are sold per year
- In Germany between 600 to 700 per year.
- In Spain, between 300 and 500 per year.
- In Central and South America it sells for around 2000.
- In Russia 250 to 400 pounds;
- In Ukraine 100 pounds.
- In Brazil, The Urantia Book is a bestseller; 1000 are sold per year.
Urantian activities around the world
Mexico, Peru and Guatemala do a lot of zoom conferencing.
Translations and revisions of The Urantia Book.
The Chinese translation is complete but it will still take several years to complete.
The Indonesian translation is complete. It is in its revision phase.
The translation into Farsi (Iran) is three-quarters complete.
The revision of the 1995 Spanish translation is nearly complete and is expected to be printed in 2020.
The revision of the Portuguese translation is also in its final phase and should be available in 2021.
New translations completed but not yet printed, unfinished or requiring corrections have been placed on the Foundation’s website with the aim of attracting readers wishing to participate in their improvement, such as translations into Swedish, Bulgarian, Literary Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, Danish, Japanese and Romanian.
In 10 years, it is estimated that 27 translations will be available allowing 80% of the Urantia population to have access to the revelation in their mother tongue.
¶ III. Should we create a spiritual reception center and how to do it?
In the USA, the Foundation owns a building located at 533 Diversey Parkway, Chicago Illinois. This large three-story house with a basement was donated by the Sadler family. This is where Urantia Foundation has its offices and activities and where the Trustees and Associates meet 4 times a year. This building also hosts conferences, seminars, study groups, and cultural and scientific symposia. There is also a library in the basement.
Would it be interesting if there was a rallying point in Europe where we could meet and organize seminars?
It would be necessary to join forces with other European associations to obtain real estate.
We should create a center with reception facilities where people could come and rest initially, the presidents of the countries Spain and Italy could contact each other.
Would the center be cheaper in France? Proposal that the project starts on a French initiative.
Participation, working group in the construction of a center’s research project:
Thierry Lepage, José Mayor, Gilles Mauroy, Samuel Bize, Johanna Beukers, and Tor Eriksen, Sophie Malicot, Ivan Stol and Georges Michelson-Dupont propose to set up a draft project on the Internet.
At the last meeting, we discussed the possibility of creating a spiritual center.
Ivan: “I thought about it and I came to
said that we could not put ourselves in the place of a Garden of Eden. We do not yet have that scope."
At the European level, the presidents would agree to have this kind of center but it implies a lot of involvement.
Since we are looking for the future of our association, the idea to put into practice is to have a center in Europe where readers can meet.
At the end of the document, the publication mandate, to understand the philosophy to apply
The problem is how to give birth to such a project?
The best would be to locate it in France because France is central to Spain, Portugal, Italy and Germany and the price of real estate is relatively cheap.
Have a meeting and study center in France where readers from all countries could meet and organize events, seminars, conferences and receive young people on summer vacation, or even for vacations for readers too.
It would be necessary to create an SCI with a lease to the AFLUB. Several possibilities exist. The creation of a structure with a business activity for stressed business executives or those looking to unwind and alongside a Urantia activity that would organize study groups and a school. It is essentially the business activity that would keep the center alive.
A center with material activity, beds, rooms, showers, etc. and spiritual activity with meditations and prayers and working the land.
If we present this project to several European associations, we will have to find funding for it and by looking towards Spain, Italy, Germany or the Swiss, we could achieve it by starting small at the beginning.
There is a dynamic to be put in place and the idea is also to bring in retirees who would live on site and who would manage the buildings and gardens. There should be no employees. We should find an arrangement with a notary or a lawyer that would allow us not to despoil the heirs.
There are fully equipped reception centers with several hectares of land which sell for sums between five hundred thousand and one million euros depending on their condition and geographical location.
There are also abbeys and cloisters which are being sold because the Church is parting with many of its assets, but these buildings will have to be restored and certain people who live there could possibly take on the task of restoring these buildings.
¶ IV. Election of the executive board.
The assembly votes by show of hands and reappoints the executive office in
its entirety.
For the record:
- President: Mr. Ivan Stol
- Vice-president: Mr. Périer Lucas
- Treasurer: Mr. Jean Duveau
- Secretary: Mr. Max Masotti
The assembly appoints Gilles Mauroy as substitute.
No further discussion is on the agenda. The meeting ends at 11:30 a.m.
WITH God the Father, sonship is the great relationship. With God the Supreme, achievement is the prerequisite to status—one must do something as well as be something. (UB 115:0.1)
The entire scheme of universal creation and evolution on all experiencing levels is apparently a matter of the conversion of potentialities into actualities; and this transmutation has to do equally with the realms of space potency, mind potency, and spirit potency. (UB 115:2.3)
everyone will recognize themselves.